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Nov. 12, 2025, 5:00 AM ESTBy Raf Sanchez and Alex HolmesRIGA, Latvia — In a nondescript factory on the edge of Latvia’s capital, a small team is trying to solve a continental-sized problem: How can Europe protect itself from swarms of Russian attack drones? Used on an almost nightly basis in the war in Ukraine, a spate of mysterious drone incursions above airports and sensitive sites has also highlighted Europe’s vulnerability to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and sparked alarm that NATO nations are unprepared to defend themselves from the cheap but effective weaponry. As a result, European leaders have backed plans for a “drone wall,” a network of sensors and weapons to detect, track and neutralize intruding UAVs, and in Riga, the team at a small tech company called Origin is on the forefront of this new, high-tech battleground. Its solution, a 3-foot-tall interceptor drone named “Blaze.” Powered by an artificial intelligence system, it has been trained to recognize a hostile target and navigate close to it. It will then alert a human operator, who will make a decision on whether to intercept and push a button which explodes a 28-ounce warhead, self-destructing the drone and hopefully bringing down its target too. The Blaze interceptor drone, developed by Origin. Alex Holmes / NBC News“We don’t fly these systems. These systems fly themselves,” Origin CEO Agris Kipurs told NBC News last week in an interview outside the factory, adding that Blaze addressed “the problem of relatively cheap, low-flying threats that are deployed in volumes.” Kipurs, who previously developed drones to follow and film extreme sports athletes, said he pivoted to focus on defense technology after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Ukrainian government estimates Russia is now making more than 300 drones a day at the cost of just a few thousand dollars — each enough to pound the capital, Kyiv, and other cities with massive aerial attacks every night. Ukraine has also turned to relatively cheap drone technologies in a bid to offset Russia numerical advantages on the battlefield; last year, it became the first country to establish a separate branch of the military dedicated to drones.

- Latest News - November 12, 2025

Drone warfare as seen in Russia’s war in Ukraine is sparking alarm in NATO and Europe that its forces are unprepared to fight unmanned aerial vehicles.

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Nov. 12, 2025, 5:12 AM ESTBy Mithil AggarwalA surge in energized solar particles hurling towards the Earth is lighting up the skies as far south as Florida with dazzling displays, which meteorologists say is powerful enough to knock out a few radios.The red, purple and green hues colored skies in Alabama, Ohio and Texas, and forecasters at the Space Weather Prediction Center have said the geomagnetic storm could intensify as the “final and most energetic CME,” meaning coronal mass ejection, is yet to arrive and could reach Earth on Wednesday afternoon.The northern lights visible over Minneapolis, Minnesota, due to a major geomagnetic storm and heightened solar activity.Steven Garcia / ReutersA CME is an eruption of massive clouds of protons, electrons, and magnetic fields from the Sun’s outer atmosphere at very high speeds.When it reaches the Earth’s magnetic field, also called the magnetosphere, it collides with the particles around the planet, producing colorful light known as aurora borealis in the northern hemisphere and aurora australis in the southern hemisphere.The Aurora Borealis lights up the night sky over Monroe, Wisconsin, on Tuesday.Ross Harried / NurPhoto via Getty ImagesShawn Dahl, a forecaster at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado, said two CMEs had already reached Earth, resulting in a geomagnetic storm which reached G4 — the second-highest rating on a five-step scale.The overall strength of the magnetic field from the passing CMEs was “not only eight times stronger than what’s normal but is also favorable at the moment for continued activity,” Dahl said in a video posted on X. Forecasters warned the magnetic storm could cause power fluctuations, GPS degradation and intermittent disruptions to radios.The northern lights seen in Athens, Ohio on Tuesday night.Ellie Beck-Aden“Watches at this level are very rare,” the Space Weather Prediction Center said in an advisory. “We believe that the ‘heart’ of the current CME — the magnetic cloud — is passing over the Earth and will continue to do so through the overnight hours,” the agency said early Wednesday. With the third, stronger CME expected to reach the Earth on Wednesday, an aurora could be visible even further south.While the second-highest level advisory was still in effect for another few hours, Dahl said it was possible this could reach G5, the highest rating. The Aurora Borealis over Minneapolis, Minnesota.Steven Garcia / via ReutersMithil AggarwalMithil Aggarwal is a Hong Kong-based reporter/producer for NBC News.

- Latest News - November 12, 2025

A surge in energized solar particles hurling towards the Earth is lighting up the skies as far south as Florida with dazzling displays, which meteorologists say is powerful enough to.

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Nov. 12, 2025, 5:00 AM ESTBy Scott Wong, Ryan Nobles and Lillie BoudreauxWASHINGTON — Democrats shut down the federal government to secure a key demand: extending health care subsidies for millions of Americans.After a more than 40-day standoff, they threw in the towel — with no guarantee from Republicans that they would agree to renew the expiring Obamacare tax credits.Progressive activists and their Democratic allies in Congress, who had wanted the party to fight on longer, decried it as a monumental “cave” to an authoritarian in Donald Trump.But others in the party see a silver lining in the six-week standoff. The eight Senate Democrats who bucked their own leadership and negotiated an end to the longest shutdown in American history said the bipartisan deal protects federal workers who had been laid off during the shutdown — at least temporarily.Kornacki: Trump and Republicans ‘took a hit’ in approval ratings during government shutdown17:05More importantly, they said, the grueling shutdown that is expected to end in the coming days has “crystallized” the battle lines in the next major political fight over health care that is sure to spill into the 2026 midterm election year. It also underscored Trump’s cruelty, Democratic leaders argued, as the White House fought to halt food stamp payments to states during the shutdown.While emotions are raw and finger-pointing rampant in the wake of the deal, the Democratic Party was unified during most of the record 42-day shutdown, demonstrating for the first time it could take on Trump, rev up the progressive base and turn out voters at the polls, as it did in this month’s elections.“I think the Democrats did … some of the best messaging I think we’ve ever had in terms of talking about affordability and talking about health insurance,” said Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., who voted against reopening the government. “And I think that was the reason why you saw the results coming in, in New Jersey and Virginia, and that you saw that the polling was going our way.”Small winsAmong the eight Senate Democrats who struck a deal with the White House and Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., four were former governors — pragmatists used to working across the aisle who argue you don’t always get what you want in legislation.The agreement includes a “minibus” of three appropriations bills, which will fund some parts of the government through next fall. The rest of the government will be funded through Jan. 30.The deal includes funding of the food assistance program known as SNAP for the rest of the fiscal year through September 2026, meaning families will be fed and food stamps can’t be used as leverage in any funding fight in the coming months.The group of eight also got some wins for federal workers, who have been under siege since Trump’s inauguration, facing aggressive Department of Government Efficiency cuts and the consolidation of some agencies, like the U.S. Agency for International Development.They got the Trump administration to agree to reinstate federal workers who were laid off during the shutdown through reductions in force, or RIFs. And they secured language barring future mass firings for the duration of the resolution that keeps the government open through January.It’s a win for “federal employees who are not going to be traumatized by RIFs going forward,” said Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, the former governor of Virginia, a state home to nearly 150,000 civilian federal workers. “I’ve got some folks who didn’t like the vote, but I’m going to have a whole lot of federal employees who are going back to work and they’re getting their paychecks, and they can live through the holidays without worrying that they’re going to get a bad email at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning that they’re laid off.”“They have been living under a cloud of anxiety since Jan. 20, and we’ve lifted that cloud to some degree,” Kaine added. Crystallizing the health fightThe deal fell far short when it comes to health care. Democrats failed to win an extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits that were boosted during the Covid-19 pandemic and are set to expire on Dec. 31. Instead, they secured only a promise from Thune that the Senate will vote on a bill to extend the health subsidies by the end of the second week of December. The House has made no such promise.“Obviously, the Democrats did not hold the line,” said a disappointed Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who voted against the funding bill.“Look, I think it was a terrible, terrible vote at a time when we have a broken health care system,” added another progressive, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who caucuses with Democrats.Drawing out the high-stakes shutdown through October and into the November ACA open enrollment period served two purposes for Democrats, members on both sides of the deal said. It gave them time to educate the public about an issue few in the country were talking about — the expiring subsidies — and came as millions of Americans began feeling the sticker stock firsthand as they received notices of skyrocketing monthly premiums for 2026.“What happened over the last 40 days is we crystallized the fight about health care for the American people and made it clear who’s holding that up,” retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., a key negotiator and former governor who has authored a one-year extension of the subsidies, told NBC News.“It’s President Donald Trump, it’s Speaker Johnson and it’s the Republicans who have been unwilling to do anything to address the rising costs of health care,” Shaheen said.#embed-20251002-shutdown-milestones iframe {width: 1px;min-width: 100%}The GOP’s stunning, unsuccessful attempt to repeal Obamacare during Trump’s first term helped propel House Democrats to the majority in the 2018 midterms. Democrats believe it’s a good issue for their party, and one that will again help them take back control of the House next year.Amid this week’s circular Democratic firing squad, party leaders are desperately urging their members to keep the heat on Republicans, particularly vulnerable ones facing tough re-election bids.“It’s critical that we continue to highlight the health care crisis that the Republicans refuse to come to the table to try and solve, and call out by name our Republican colleagues in swing seats refusing to extend health care subsidies on the insurance marketplace,” Rep. Suzan DelBene, the head of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, wrote in a memo to her colleagues.“Please stay disciplined and focused in communicating that the House Republicans best positioned to stand up to President Trump and Republican leadership on behalf of their constituents to end this crisis, have refused,” she said.40-day fightLiberal activists and even mainstream Democratic voters had been clamoring for a fight with Trump as the president ran roughshod over the Democratic opposition and even the GOP-controlled Congress.Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee that oversees government spending, said she’s not happy with how the shutdown saga ended and has even called for new Democratic leadership in the Senate.But she doesn’t consider the past 40 days a “complete failure.”“We didn’t get what we wanted, but it certainly elevated the consequences of the health care crisis, which is about to be made significantly worse,” Escobar, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in an interview. “And it has demonstrated that Republicans are unwilling to solve that and other crises confronting the American people.”“I’m very proud of the unity of purpose we demonstrated,” she continued. “The majority of the American people understood we are fighting for them.”Scott WongScott Wong is a senior congressional reporter for NBC News. Ryan NoblesRyan Nobles is chief Capitol Hill correspondent for NBC News.Lillie BoudreauxLillie Boudreaux is a desk assistant at NBC News.

- Latest News - November 12, 2025

Democrats shut down the federal government to secure a key demand: extending health care subsidies for millions of Americans.

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Nov. 12, 2025, 12:40 AM ESTBy Josh Cradduck and Dennis RomeroJack Schlossberg, the only grandson of late President John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy Onassis, announced Tuesday night that he’s running for U.S. Congress.The 32-year-old son of Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg said he’s running for the New York City seat long held by U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-NY, who in September announced he will retire.”I’m running for Congress to represent my home, New York’s 12th congressional district, where I was born and raised, where I took the bus to school every single day from one side of the district to the other,” Schlossberg said in a video announcing his candidacy.”This is the best part of the greatest city on Earth,” he said.Schlossberg’s politics fall within the family tradition of allegiance to the Democratic Party. He has developed an eccentric social media personality in which he often rails against President Donald Trump, Republicans in general and his first cousin-once-removed, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.Schlossberg has been vocally critical of Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist. “He’s trading in on Camelot, celebrity conspiracy theories and conflict for personal gain and fame,” Schlossberg said of Kennedy in 2023 after the latter’s refusal to endorse former President Joe Biden’s reelection bid. Schlossberg completed undergraduate studies in history at Yale and received a law degree and master’s of business administration from Harvard. In July 2024, he joined Vogue as a political correspondent for that year’s presidential election. He indicated his campaign will be about fighting against Trump’s policies.New York’s 12th congressional district composes the geographical heart of Manhattan, including all of Central Park and most of the island north of Greenwhich Village and south of Harlem.”We have the best hospitals and schools, restaurants and museums,” Schlossberg said in his statement Tuesday. “This is the financial and media capital of the world. This district should have a representative who can harness the creativity, energy and drive of this district and translate that into political power in Washington.” Josh CradduckAssignment Editor, NBC NewsDennis RomeroDennis Romero is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.

- Latest News - November 12, 2025

Jack Schlossberg, the only grandson of late President John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy Onassis, announced Tuesday night that he’s running for U.S.

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